From increasing the National Portrait Gallery’s wall space to revitalising a notorious estate, this year’s finalists for the RIBA Stirling architecture prize couldn’t be more different
It is like trying to compare a Hollywood blockbuster with an indie documentary, or a symphony orchestra with a busker. This year’s RIBA Stirling prize for the best building in the the country sees the £19bn Elizabeth line and the 67-acre regeneration of King’s Cross go head to head with a little row of council houses and a refurbished farmyard in Dorset.
The annual architecture gong is always a case of apples and oranges, but the disparity in scale and cost has never been more extreme than on this year’s shortlist. Joining the diverse bunch are also two fiendishly complex transformations of existing buildings, the Victorian National Portrait Gallery and the postwar Park Hill housing estate in Sheffield. How on earth will the judges decide?
